The origin of a ”severe” E. coli outbreak affecting McDonald’s Quarter Pounders has been linked back to the sandwich’s onions. Supplier U.S. Foods announced Wednesday that Taylor Farms had issued a recall notification for yellow onions, jumbo peeled, diced and whole peeled, “due to potential E. coli contamination,” reports NBC News. An FDA spokesperson told NBC that the agency is now investigating the supplier and “all possible sources” as the cause of the outbreak. Out of precaution, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut have all pulled onions from a portion of their restaurants. “There is no crossover with McDonald’s for the vast majority of our onion facilities,” said a Burger King spokesperson in a Thursday statement to Today.com. However, the spokesperson said “about 5% of” of the company’s restaurants do receive onions distributed from the Taylor Farms Colorado facility. The difference is that Burger King employees “only uses whole, fresh onions” that employees process by hand daily. Following the announcement, the restaurant giant said it has “reviewed our restaurant supply.” The spokesperson added, “We proactively asked our 5% of restaurants who received whole onions distributed by this facility to dispose of them immediately two days ago, and we are in the process of restocking them from other facilities.” There have been 49 cases, 10 hospitalizations, and one death connected to the outbreak, according to the CDC.
